The renewal of the Initiative for Minority Student Development (IMSD) program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) will continue to help facilitate the university's effort to increase the involvement of underrepresented minority students in research. The UNC-CH IMSD program will help facilitate more involvement of undergraduate minority students in biomedical and behavioral sciences research, increased enrollment of minority graduate students, and enhanced opportunities for minority medical dental students to be involved in basic biomedical research. The goals of the program are to assist in doubling the number of enrolled underrepresented minority graduate students in the participating academic programs and to continue the increased involvement of undergraduate minority students in gaining high quality research experiences. A foundation of the program is the strengths of UNC-CH's strong research activities and its efforts in enhancing and promoting diversity among its student body. The mentoring concept is the cornerstone of the IMSD program. Twenty-one Ph.D. granting academic programs are involved as are the Inter-- Disciplinary Biomedical Science Program and the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. The program consists of multiple components involving undergraduate, graduate, medical, and dental students participation in research under the direction of UNC-CH faculty members. At steady state and across all components, the program will provide research compensation for at least 58 students annually. Through IMSD, UNC-CH will continue to strengthen and expand current programs and develop additional innovative programs to enhance the research competitiveness of underrepresented minority students at the undergraduate, graduate, and the professional school level.